Columns today
Mary Jo Melone: Still not sure about war, but ready to trust Bush
When you're in need of a distraction, there's no better place to go than the mall.

Helen Huntley: A lesson for teachers on a new tax deduction
One of the hazards of writing about personal finance for a living is that friends, neighbors and relatives regularly ask for advice. Thus it was no big surprise when this e-mail from one of my cousins arrived in my electronic mailbox:

Jan Glidewell: Dating moves too fast, then we forget
Age creeps up on you slowly. One day you realize that you either need glasses or longer arms in order to read. Another time you find yourself saying, "my hearing is fine, I just wish everybody would stop mumbling!"

Philip Gailey: Arm of restraint makes a compelling case on Iraq
Colin Powell, the reluctant warrior, has emerged as the Bush administration's most persuasive advocate of military intervention in Iraq.

Bill Maxwell: Peterman opts out of fight
Having walked away from a key education assignment, lawmaker should keep going.

Adam C. Smith: Democrats acquire a farm team
Those who declare the ballgame over aren't paying attention to the party's hot prospects in Tampa and other cities.

Robyn L. Blumner: Religious indoctrination dressed up as social welfare
This message is to anyone who thinks that the separation of church and state is a vital component of American liberty: Wake up and start hollering. Our president is conducting a full frontal assault on this vital right, and few beyond a handful of civil liberties groups are paying any mind.

Martin Dyckman: A couple's loss may offer lesson
TALLAHASSEE -- It's a common event for a doctor to send a sick child to the emergency room to be pumped up with fluids.

Hubert Mizell: Chief of the Chiefs gets well-deserved spot in Hall
Hank Stram was the cockiest, most quotable, most outrageous, most fancy attired football coach I ever knew. Next summer, with a bust that should be K.C. Red instead of Canton Bronze, the 80-year-old rooster from Purdue will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Gary Shelton: I want my ... I want my Buc news ... right now!
The eyes. First, you notice the eyes. The hollow, hungry eyes that plead as they approach.

 

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.